"Stiff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... road the child had come. Now to this the little one was rather inclined, for he believed it would take him home, but on attempting to walk he found that he had hurt his foot before he had reached the rock, and that the cold air had made it stiff and painful. Poor Reuben was going to cry, and then I do not know what would have happened if Nero, finding out that something was wrong, had not seated himself beside the child on the ground to comfort him; and in so doing, ...
— Brotherly Love - Shewing That As Merely Human It May Not Always Be Depended Upon • Mrs. Sherwood
... thick hobnailed boots and a stiff sukmana,[1] fastened a hard strap round his waist, and put on his high sheepskin cap. The heaviness in his limbs increased, and it came into his mind that it would be more suitable to be buried in a bundle of straw after a huge bowl of peeled barley-soup ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... rode at her rein, on a lyart {28} palfrey, and she looking up, I saw the face of Elliot, and Elliot saw me, and saw Charlotte leaning on me and laughing. Then Elliot's face grew deadly pale, her lower lip stiff, as when she was angered with me at Chinon, and so, wrying her neck suddenly to the left, she rode on her way, nor ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... back after the lecture to the Prince's flat in Royal Court Mansions, which, as a bachelor and a bird of passage, he found much more convenient in many ways than a house. He ordered his Russian servant to make coffee for his guest, and mixed a stiff brandy-and-soda for himself. He wanted it, for the experiences of the evening had shaken even his nerves not a little. He was essentially a man of power, both physically and mentally, of boundless ambitions and iron will, vast knowledge of the world, as he knew it, and of very high intellectual ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... egg is much easier to digest than the yolk, therefore the whites only should be used in cases of very weak digestion. Beaten up with orange juice, they are both palatable and wholesome; or they may be beaten very stiff and served cold with a sauce of prune juice or other cooked fruit juices. This makes a ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... beautiful, and the evening was, if possible, more so. Gaily garbed maidens of the village and stalwart rustics filled the courtyard of the convent. A blind fiddler, who had fiddled three generations off the stage, sat in front of a group of elders of either sex, who, though too old and too stiff to partake in the active and exciting amusement, were still young enough to enjoy looking on. A few shaven crowns peered from the latticed casements which looked out on to the merry scene. The music struck up, the dance began. Who approaches? Why are ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous
... he has seen, fail' if tried by a certain test: what test? Why this: that 'the large hand seen through a diminishing glass, ought to be reduced into the current hand; and the current hand, magnified, ought to swell into a large hand.' Whereas, on the contrary, 'the large hands reduced appear very stiff and cramped; and the magnified running hand'—'appears little better than a scrawl.' Now to us the result appears in a different light. It is true that the large hands reduced do not appear good running hands according to the standard derived from the actual ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... a rigid standstill the very second that screech made the echoes ring through the aisles of the forest; he seemed startled, amazed and apparently frozen stiff in his tracks. ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie
... I proposed. "It will be a nuisance for you, Jimmy—it will probably bore you stiff. But if you'll only come along with me . ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... six pallbearers sit upon chairs, all of them bolt upright, with their hands on their knees. They are in their Sunday clothes, with stiff white shirts. Their hats are on the floor beside their chairs. Each wears upon his lapel the gilt badge of a fraternal order, with a crepe rosette. In the gloom they are indistinguishable; all of them talk ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... his hand when she had slipped the cord twined round his arm. He could scarcely close his fingers on it, so stiff had they become, and he fumbled clumsily before he had cut himself free. Then he rose to his ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... Wishes for itself to answer.— In the name of God, O corse, [He extends his hands over the dead body of POLONIA. Lying stiff here, I command thee To arise and live, resuming Thine own soul, and thus make patent This great truth, before us preaching The true ...
— The Purgatory of St. Patrick • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... waking in their nests overhead grew clamorous with joy, yet their notes seemed to contain a warning tone for him, bidding him begone ere the coming of the light hated by those whose deeds are evil. Chilled by the frosty air, and stiff and sore from long standing in a constrained position, he limped away, and disappeared in the ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... of evil which they had reason to dread. Under such pilotage, the passengers, at least, would be safe, when their ship fell upon a place where two seas met. Now Massachusetts and Rhode Island were in stiff hostility during the period here chronicled. The founder of Rhode Island and nearly all of its leading spirits had been "spewed out of the Bay Colony,"—and the institutions which the Rhode Islanders ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... You must excuse me, Paramore, if I say that I no longer feel any confidence in your opinion as a medical man. (Paramore's eye flashes: he straightens himself and listens.) I paid you a pretty stiff fee for that consultation when you condemned me; and I can't say I think you gave ...
— The Philanderer • George Bernard Shaw
... sector was illustrated by the sharp drop in 1991-92 due largely to the Gulf war. Although the industry has rebounded, the government recognizes the continuing need for upgrading the sector in the face of stiff international competition. ...
— The 1996 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... dress "—and felt, rather than saw, the whole elaborate manoeuvre; the rear ranks locking up, the covering sergeants jigging about like dancers in a minuet—pace to the rear, side step to the right—the pivot men with stiff arms extended, the companies wheeling up and dressing; all happening precisely ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... a very well-dressed bourgeois, who had a prominent belly, a sonorous voice, a bald head, a lofty brow, a black beard, and one of these stiff mustaches which will not lie flat, offered cartridges ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... which I could see was marked five were two nice seats that were to each other face to face, but it appeared that neither of them was vacant for Mr. Robert Carruthers. On one the lady sat with very stiff black silk skirts projecting from her sides, as did her thin elbows also in the stiffness of white linen. Beside her, occupying the rest of her seat, was a hat with large black bows of equal stiffness with the rest of ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... after they both fell forward on the straw, as if unable to endure in any other attitude the burning eloquence of a tall grim figure in black, who, standing erect in the centre, was uttering with incredible vehemence an oration that seemed to hover between praying and preaching; his arms hung stiff and immoveable by his side, and he looked like an ill-constructed machine, set in action by a movement so violent, as to threaten its own destruction, so jerkingly, painfully, yet rapidly, did his words tumble out; the kneeling circle ceasing ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... given to row by batches, while we ate something, for the vessel was well provided; but the rowers said it was not a time to take any rest; let food be served out to those who were not rowing, but they would not leave their oars on any account. This was done, but now a stiff breeze began to blow, which obliged us to leave off rowing and make sail at once and steer for Oran, as it was impossible to make any other course. All this was done very promptly, and under sail we ran more ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... under the microscope a section of the hair of a Chinaman or an American Indian is found to be circular, that of a European oval in shape. As a rule, the flatter the hair the more readily it curls, the perfectly cylindrical hair hanging down stiff and straight. A section of the straight hair of a Japanese, for instance, forms a perfect circle. So much importance being attached to the structure of the hair, I made a collection from different individuals. They were willing ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... listlessness could never be mistaken for languor. The thin short lips might be very pitiless when compressed, very contemptuous and provocative when curling; but the enormous mustache, sweeping over them like a wave, and ending in a clean stiff upward curve, made even this a matter of mere conjecture. The cold, steady, dark eyes seldom flashed or glittered; but, when their pupils contracted, there came into them a sort of sullen, suppressed, ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... that it seemed like insensibility to the goodness of Providence, which had delivered the infidels into their hands, to allow them any longer to usurp the fair inheritance of the Christians, and that the whole of the stiff- necked race of Mahomet might justly be required to submit without exception to instant baptism, or to sell their estates and remove to Africa. This, they maintained, could be scarcely regarded as an infringement of the treaty, since the Moors would be so great gainers on the score ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... coatless, stiff from the hours on the mouldy stones, dragged himself up and turned his eyes in fear upon the figure beside him. It flashed hopefully through his mind that perhaps it had not changed, that perhaps he had dreamed it all, ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... sunny fresh air, that the whole effect was not half as bad as it might be imagined; indeed, when Mammy Curry, the magnificent old negress who was supreme in the kitchen and respected in the nursery as well, came in with her stiff white apron and silver tea-tray, she seemed to fit into the picture, and add a completing ...
— The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne • Kathleen Norris
... therein prohibited, that editor and that editor's newspaper would assuredly be crumpled up in a manner very disagreeable, if not altogether destructive. Editors of newspapers are self-willed, arrogant, and stiff-necked, a race of men who believe much in themselves and little in anything else, with no feelings of reverence or respect for matters which are august enough to other men;—but an injunction from a Court of Chancery is a power which even an editor respects. At ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... of the performers stood up, and seizing his snake by the neck, he swung him three times around his head, and dropped him on the floor. There he lay extended at his full length, as stiff as though he had taken a dose of ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... the orthodox custom of translators to render the dialogue of the Greek plays in blank verse; but in this instance the whole animation and rapidity of the original would be utterly lost in the stiff construction and protracted rhythm ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Monty, "there seems something in this ivory business. Our chance ought to be as good as anybody's. But there are one or two stiff hurdles. In the first place, the story is common property. Every one knows it—Arabs—Swahili—Greeks—Germans—English. To be suspected of looking for it would spell failure, for the simple reason that every adventurer on the coast would trail us, and if we did find it we shouldn't be able ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... were certain differences between the Canterbury colonists and those of Otago, which local feeling intensified in a manner always paltry, though sometimes amusing. When the stiff-backed Free-Churchmen who were to colonize Otago gathered on board the emigrant ship which was to take them across the seas, they opened their psalm-books. Their minister, like Burns' cottar, "waled a portion wi' judicious care," and the Puritans, slowly ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... see her. But no, there would be no time—he had appealed to Caesar. He must send a letter to her telling that he had started out for Jericho. A dangerous journey he knew it to be, but he was without strength to resist the temptation of one more effort to save the Jews: a hard, bitter, stiff-necked, stubborn race that did not deserve salvation, that resisted it. He had been scourged, how many times, at the instigation of the Jews? and they had stoned him at Lystra, a city ever dear to him, for it was there he had met Eunice; the memories that gathered ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... shadow of a happiness which he cannot grasp when he has reached it. There is much wisdom in the opinion expressed by a certain fox concerning grapes hanging out of distance; but it is a wisdom seldom acquired till the limbs are too stiff to stretch for an effort—till there is scarce a tooth left in the mumbling jaws to ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... a name! Is he stiff, I wonder?' came from Monkey, almost before the announcement had left her father's lips. 'What will he think of Tante Jeanne?' Her little torrent of questions that prejudged him thus never called for accurate ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... little persuasion." His voice rang high on a note of challenge. "If you want that paper, you'll have to accept my terms and my terms are stiff." ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... boughs that I had cut from a cedar tree and laid a gum cloth upon them. Upon this pallet I lay down and covering myself head and all with a blanket enjoyed sweet, refreshing, and healthful sleep. The next morning the blanket above my head was stiff-frozen with the moisture ...
— Reminiscences of a Rebel • Wayland Fuller Dunaway
... of pepper, quarter of a saltspoonful of grated nutmeg, one tablespoonful of salad oil, (which is used to make the batter crisp,) and one cup of water, more or less, as the flour will take it up; the batter should be stiff enough to hold the drops from the spoon in shape when they are let fall upon it; now beat the whites of the two eggs to a stiff froth, beginning slowly, and increasing the speed until you are beating as fast ...
— The Cooking Manual of Practical Directions for Economical Every-Day Cookery • Juliet Corson
... is in rat, but not in mouse. My second is in pheasant, but not in grouse. My third is in limp, but not in stiff. My fourth is in smoke, but not in whiff. My fifth is in waistcoat, but not in vest. My sixth is in eager, but not in zest. My seventh is in high, but not in low. My whole was a courtier of long ago, An author who travelled in foreign lands, And died ...
— Harper's Young People, June 1, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... indicating at the same time by politely reaching a chair for her that he regarded these manifestations as rather crude and startling. Having made his clerical toilet with due care in the morning, he was prepared only for those amenities of life which were suited to the well-adjusted stiff cravat of the period, and to a mind weighted ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... glanced around hurriedly, even as had Cabenza, then tilted the mouth of the bottle over his lips and let a long stiff drink gurgle down his throat. He patted his fat paunch contentedly and handed the bottle to his companion. The second guard ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... any bourgeoise chit. Who'd think you educated highly? No, not so stiff. Do blush a ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, March 21, 1891 • Various
... thus: "For I know their imagination which they go about, even now before I have brought them into the land which I sware;" and, a little while after (xxxi:27), Moses says: For I know thy rebellion and thy stiff neck: behold while I am yet alive with you this day, ye have been rebellious against the Lord; and how much more after ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part IV] • Benedict de Spinoza
... man was stiff,' said the doctor, 'and your side only offered to double him in your ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... jelly to turn out very stiff, dissolve isinglass in a little water, strain through a sieve, and add it in the proportion of half an ounce to a pint of juice, and put it in with ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... a background of harsh, dark blue, there stands out the figure of the Duchess (for it is Medea, the real Medea, a thousand times more real, individual, and powerful than in the other portraits), seated stiffly in a high-backed chair, sustained, as it were, almost rigid, by the stiff brocade of skirts and stomacher, stiffer for plaques of embroidered silver flowers and rows of seed pearl. The dress is, with its mixture of silver and pearl, of a strange dull red, a wicked poppy-juice ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... that from that time on they all aspired to own a derby, no matter how ancient its appearance or of what color it might be. And no matter if they did not have a shirt to their back, if they had on a good stiff derby hat, they were dressed for any occasion and to appear ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... "Ye swash-buckler! Ye stiff-necked braggart!" bawled the priest. "Out wid y'r nonsense, and what good are y' thinkin' ye'll do—? Stir your stumps, y' ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... were as sweet and kind as Mrs Brooke's. Not a bit stiff or condescending, as I expected. I see now what you meant, Mrs Bhaer, when you said once that well-bred people were the same all ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... of The Lane none more deserved distinction than Mary Magovern. The grandmother of a numerous family, she united all the masculine and feminine virtues. About the stiff, spotless and colossal frill of her cap curled wreaths of smoke from her stout dhudeen as she sat before the door blacking the small boots of her grandchildren, stopping from time to time to remove the pipe from her mouth, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... and before Miss Plympton could prevent her, or even imagine what she was about, she darted forward and snatched the letter from her hand. Then she tore it open and read it breathlessly. The letter was very short, and was written in a stiff, constrained hand. It ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... ii., p. 23.) are the descendants of the ruff a portion of the ordinary civil costume of the sixteenth century. In the reign of James I., the ruff was occasionally exchanged for a wide stiff collar, standing out horizontally and squarely, made of similar stuff, starched and wired, and sometimes edged like the ruff with lace. These collars were called bands. A good example occurs in the portrait of Shakspeare by Cornelius Jansen, engravings of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 35, June 29, 1850 • Various
... you ever so much better," said Diana. "It's so soft and frilly and clinging. The muslin is stiff, and makes you look too dressed up. But the organdy seems as if it ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... as, yawning and boring and shaking his head, Parvo dashed through the now yelping scattered pack, making straight for a stiff new gate, which he smashed through, just as a circus pony ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... years ol' yisterdah. A rayporther iv th' Fluff sought him out an' indeavored to intherview him on th' Nicaragooan Canal, th' Roomanyan Jews, th' tahriff an' th' thrusts. Th' comin' statesman rayfused to be dhrawn on these questions, his answer bein' a ready, "Go chase ye'ersilf, ye big stiff!" Afther a daylightful convarsation th' rayporther left, bein' followed to th' gate be his janial young host who hit him smartly in th' back with a brick. He is a chip iv ...
— Observations by Mr. Dooley • Finley Peter Dunne
... distant from each other, the eastermost bearing S. by W. seven leagues, and the westermost S.W. the same distance. We now stood over for the high land of Aden, N.W. by N. and N.W. the wind at E. and E. by N. a stiff breeze, and the current easterly, lat. 11 deg. 58' N.[410] The 11th we had sight of the high land of Arabia, being that of Darsina, and having a strong easterly current in coming over, though we steered between N.N.W. and N.W. we were so carried ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... rise by any talents into their favored circle. They were great feudal landlords; and their ranks were not recruited, as in England, by men of genius and wealth. Hence, they were narrow, bigoted, and arrogant; but they had polished and gracious manners, and shone in the stiff though elegant society of Vienna,—not brilliant as in Paris or London, but exceedingly attractive, and devoted to pleasure, to grand hunting-parties on princely estates, to operas and balls and theatres. Probably Vienna society was dull, if it was elegant, from the etiquette ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... male ego had revolted. He shrugged and turned his attention to the autopsy report, but it was hopeless. He couldn't concentrate. He jotted a few notes and dropped them on the desk—tomorrow would be time enough. What he needed now was a stiff ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... replied good-humouredly. "Skeered stiff about some ole feery tale! That's all, ain't it, ole pard?" And he gave Defago a friendly kick on the moccasined foot that ...
— The Wendigo • Algernon Blackwood
... easily. Nothing could be better in this respect than The Snow-Image (a little masterpiece), or The Great Carbuncle, or Doctor Heidegger's Experiment, or Rappacini's Daughter. But in such things as The Birth-Mark and The Bosom-Serpent, we are struck with something stiff and mechanical, slightly incongruous, as if the kernel had not assimilated its envelope. But these are matters of light impression, and there would be a want of tact in pretending to discriminate too closely among things which all, in one way or another, have ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... when the chap went into it, I kept quiet. I feared he might balk. But he hasn't! He's big stuff—that boy of mine. He confided everything to me this time. Certain phases of the work almost drove him off—dissecting and, well, the grimmer aspects! Often, he told me, he had to put up a stiff fight with himself before he could enter a dissecting room—but that does one of two things, Doris: makes a doctor human or a brute. It has humanized Bud. He'll be through now, in a year or so, ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... not make much progress towards my house; the crowd in front of the great gymnasium stopped me. Octavianus had gone into the city, and the people, I heard, had greeted him with acclamations and flung themselves on their knees before him. Our stiff-necked Alexandrians in the dust before the victor! It enraged me, but my resentment ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... feeling pretty stiff and sore about the time we overtake them on the way home. Besides, most of them had zigzag scratches on face and hands by which to remember the wonderfully successful expedition for several days. Then there was Julius Hobson with a soiled ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... who aped the London cockneys in the first French Revolution. Their dress was top-boots with thick soles, knee-breeches, a dress-coat with long tails and high stiff collar, and a thick cudgel called a constitution. It was thought John Bull-like to assume a huskiness of voice, a discourtesy of manners, and a swaggering ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... Chile. They have the fleshy stems characteristic of the order, these being either globose, oblong or cylindrical, and either ribbed as in Melocactus, or broken up into distinct tubercles, and most of them armed with stiff sharp pines, set in little woolly cushions occupying the place of the buds. The flowers, produced near the apex of the plant, are generally large and showy, yellow and rose being the prevailing ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... improvement. "A Melanesian clothed," the Bishop observes, "never looks well; there is almost always a stiff, shabby-genteel look. A good specimen, not disfigured by sores and ulcers, the well-shaped form, the rich warm colour of the skin, and the easy, graceful play of every limb, unhurt by shoe or tight- fitting dress, the flower stuck naturally into ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the thinking portion of the community were to take the Swadeshi vow even though it may, for a time, cause considerable inconvenience. I hate legislative interference, in any department of life. At best it is the lesser evil. But I would tolerate, welcome, indeed, plead for a stiff protective duty upon foreign goods. Natal, a British colony, protected its sugar by taxing the sugar that came from another British colony, Mauritius. England has sinned against India by forcing free trade upon her. It may have been food for her, ...
— Third class in Indian railways • Mahatma Gandhi
... were too tired to fight any longer. Then, slowly and painfully, old Whitetail flew away over the Green Meadows, and with torn and ragged wings, Longlegs flew heavily down the Laughing Brook towards the Big River, and both were sore and stiff and ...
— The Adventures of Grandfather Frog • Thornton W. Burgess
... the frieze into compartments, which interrupt the continuity of the relief and necessitate fourteen terminal points instead of four on the cantoria. We can also detect Michelozzo's hand in the rather stiff and professional details of the architecture. But he seems to have also executed some of the reliefs, even if the general idea from which he worked should have been Donatello's. Thus the panel most remote from the cathedral facade is involved in design and ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... the background, and have a very dull time. This makes them ready to accept any suitor their parents may choose. A meeting is arranged between the young people, and after that he pays stiff visits to her home, generally in the evening, but they are never left alone together, and he is not allowed to pay her any marked attention even before others. They may exchange photographs, and ...
— The Etiquette of Engagement and Marriage • G. R. M. Devereux
... benumb'd, With stooping head, and bodie down-ward bent, Enlast hir in the corde, and with all force This life-dead man couragiously vprais'de. The bloud with paine into hir face did flowe, Hir sinewes stiff, her selfe did breathles growe. The people which beneath in flocks beheld, Assisted her with gesture, speech, desire: Cri'de and incourag'd her, and in their soules Did sweate, and labor, no white lesse then shee. Who neuer tir'd in labor, held so long Helpt by hir women, ...
— A Discourse of Life and Death, by Mornay; and Antonius by Garnier • Philippe de Mornay
... Whose cheeks were bloodless, and whose locks were hoar Mustaches strouting long and chin close shave, A steepled turban on her head she wore, Her garment wide, and by her side, her glaive, Her gilden quiver at her shoulders hung, And in her hand a bow was, stiff and strong. ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... them to me, and stepped out briskly towards the cottage. I folded up the coat, put the hat on it, looked again at the still, stiff horror in the road, soaking in its own blood, ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... strong face, keen under heavy gray brows, with hair that rose stiff and gray over a high forehead, so that he seemed like some Osage chief, taller by a third than most men, and naturally ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... himself right into it, and puts his last ounce of strength on a rope. That is the fellow who will make a good officer, and who, if needs be, can set an example to the men when they have to go aloft to reef a sail in a stiff gale. So, as I understand, Mr. Prendergast, he is going to leave the sea for a bit. It seems a ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... down here. The wind still whistled and roared, but it was some feet or more above my head and it touched me not. Presently I began to sit up and wonder where I was and what had happened and what had become of the others. I felt very stiff and wet and dirty, and my right knee ached more than I liked. I was just on the point of staggering to my feet and feeling my way to leveller ground, when quite close to me I heard something very like a moan. I dropped on my knees at that and put out a tremulous hand. My fingers ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... remarked his companion. "The gov'nor's as stiff as a nor'-wester. Nothin' in the world can turn him once he's made up his mind but a regular sou'-easter. Now, if you had been my son, and yonder tight craft my ship, I would have said, 'Come at once.' But your ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... the pony, behind him a rising cloud of yellow dust. Ned's fingers were stiff and numb from carrying the heavy jug, and the lump in his throat was growing larger, it seemed to him, with every leap ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Texas - Or, The Veiled Riddle of the Plains • Frank Gee Patchin
... to this end so much as good housekeeping. The first thing for the housekeeper to realise is that it is impossible for him to attend to his housekeeping in the stiff and unbecoming garments of his business hours. When he begins his day he must therefore ...
— Further Foolishness • Stephen Leacock
... God-head nothing can Have any worth a price in man, Nothing can harmless be." "Lord wash our sinful stains away, Water from heaven our barren clay, Our wounds and bruises heal. To thy sweet yoke our stiff necks bow, Warm with thy fire our hearts of snow, Our wandering feet repair. Oh, grant thy faithful dearest Lord, Whose only hope is thy sure word, The seven gifts of thy spirit. Grant us in life to obey thy grace, Grant us ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... action of chos in this second stage is uniformly bad. Some carry silt as well as sand, and the very light loam which the great Markanda cho has spread over the country on its banks is worth much more to the farmer than the stiff clay it has overlaid. Many chos do not pass into the third stage, when all the sand has been dropped, and the bed shrinks into a narrow ditch-like channel with steep clay banks. The inundations of torrents like the Degh and the Ghagar after this stage ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie
... but could not prevail. They left me to wait on Providence, which at length brought me another out of the same ship, to whom I made known my condition, craving his assistance for my transportation. He made me the like answer as the former, and was as stiff in his denial, until the sight of my bowl put him to pause. He returned to the ship, and after an hour's space came back again accompanied with another seaman, and for my bowl, undertook to transport me; but he told me I must be contented to lie down in the keel and endure much hardship, which ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... his personal attendant, an old horseman now somewhat stiff in the saddle. Chekmar held in leash three formidable wolfhounds, who had, however, grown fat like their master and his horse. Two wise old dogs lay down unleashed. Some hundred paces farther along the edge of the ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... dead. Come, let me put you tidy. Ah! little minx, dead or alive, you look so pretty in your blood I'm going to kiss you." Having said which the cunning soldier took her and threw her upon the bed, but she fell there all of a heap, and stiff as the body of a man that had been hanged. Seeing which her companion found it was time for his hump to retire from the game; however, the artful fellow before slinking away said, "Poor Pasquerette, ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... secret of that smile, and begged the god to take away the gift that was a curse. He had touched everything that belonged to him, and little joy did he have of his possessions! His palace was as yellow a home as a dandelion to a bee, but not half so sweet. Row upon row of stiff golden trees stood in his garden; they no longer knew a breeze when they heard it. When he sat down to eat, his feast turned to treasure uneatable. He learned that a king may starve, and he came to ...
— Old Greek Folk Stories Told Anew • Josephine Preston Peabody
... when relations ask you to tell them a story about a balloon. It means, 'But for the fact that we both have the Montmorency blood in our veins, I should be compelled to decline your kind invitation, all the stories I know about balloons being stiff 'uns.' It also means, 'Instead of talking about balloons, won't you ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... walk in the garden, which was planted in the Dutch style of stiff walks with high hedges, and was, according to the present taste, any thing but admirable. Its appearance, however, was extremely curious, contrasted with the natural and luxuriant beauties of the country by which it was surrounded. ...
— The Eskdale Herd-boy • Mrs Blackford
... surrender, Nebuchadrezzar determined never again to be troubled by stiff-necked, rebellious Judah. To that end he thoroughly ransacked the treasuries of the Temple and of the royal palace. He took away all the gold vessels that belonged to the worship of the Temple ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... was the echo, of course, that bothered him.) The unmade road to which we had come had headless lamp-standards at intervals, and ramparts of grey road-metal ready for use; and save for the strip of kerb, it was a broth of mud and stiff clay. A red light or two showed where the road-barriers were—they were laying the mains; a green railway light showed on an embankment; and the Lewisham lamps made a rusty glare through the rain. Rooum went first, walking along the ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... keep it warm: when it has risen as high as it will, add a quarter of a pint of warm water, and half an ounce of salt,—mix them well together,—rub into a little flour two ounces of butter; then make your dough, not quite so stiff as for your bread; let it stand for three-quarters of an hour, and it will be ready to make into rolls, &c.:—let them stand till they have risen, and bake them ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... beings are composed change rapidly, and in a few years probably not an atom of the primitive structure remains yet even the materialist is obliged in old age to do penance for the sins of his youth, and does not complain of the injustice of his decrepit body, entirely changed and made stiff by time, suffering for the intemperance of his youthful flexible frame. On my idea, conscience is the frame of the mind, fitted for its probation in mortality. And this is in exact accordance with the foundations of our religion, ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy
... nickname. And yet the irreverence is rather in seeming than in reality, for a nickname, a pet-name, an abbreviation, is often the truest token of popular esteem. It was so with the subject of this section, whose perennial youthfulness of heart and mind would have made formal appellation seem stiff and out of place. ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... takes the tiny corpse up in his arms, and holds it tight against his breast, and kisses the cold lips, and the cold cheeks, and the little, cold, stiff hands. ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... wonderful gift the stranger had brought him, and he was sure he could make the garden of far more value than it had ever been. So he went from bush to bush and touched the flowers. And the beautiful pink and red color faded from the roses: the violets became stiff, and then glittered among bunches of hard yellow leaves: and showers of snow-white blossoms no longer fell from the cherry-trees; the tiny petals were all changed into flakes of solid gold, which glittered so brightly in the sunbeams ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... them turn you into a mission stiff!" said Charlie Swift, when the two were seated in ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
... 'ow she wasn't going to go 'ome just to please Charlie Brice. She wouldn't speak a word to 'im, and when they all went to the music-'all together she sat with her face turned away from 'im and her elbow sticking in 'is chest. Doing that and watching the performance at the same time gave 'er a stiff neck, and she got in such a temper over it she wouldn't hardly speak to Ted, and when Charlie—meaning well—told 'er to rub it with a bit o' mutton-fat she nearly went off ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... the great sorrow of their lives that had cost Mrs. Crawford years of excruciating suffering and at first it seemed hopeless invalidism. In one of the Indian skirmishes the Major had been severely wounded in the leg that had left it lame and rather stiff. He resigned from the army to devote himself to his wife and the old residence that had been in his family for generations. And at this period a relative died and left him a large fortune. Beyond improving his estate and having the best medical attendance for ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... has a strong and rapidly growing private sector, yet the state still plays a major role in basic industry, banking, transport, and communication. The largest industrial sector is textiles and clothing, which accounts for one-third of industrial employment; it faces stiff competition in international markets with the end of the global quota system. However, other sectors, notably the automotive and electronics industries, are rising in importance within Turkey's export mix. Real GNP growth has exceeded 6% ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... a stiff night's work, and until his encounter with Driscoll he had cherished warm anticipation of the meal which would be laid out for him at his rooms, and of the bed into which he would subsequently tumble. Besides, a telephone message would send a man from the Watchman to the mortuary. This ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... it is not nearly enough, when another bottle arrives for another baby, and this is too much for Teddy's equanimity. We all know how hard it is to keep up under the shock of adversity. Teddy does not attempt to keep up; she invariably topples over. But the way she does this is instructive. She sits stiff and straight for one brief moment, her milky mouth wide open, her hands outstretched in despairing appeal; then she clasps her head with her hands in a tragic fashion, absurd in a very fat infant, sways backwards and forwards two or three times ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... course. They're just nothing, of course. But, oh, it's something, and I do want it so. To have office hours and a—a desk—and a—an employer and be—be like men. I don't mean, I don't mean a bit, imitate men like all that talk there is now about imitating men. I hate women in stiff collars and shirts and ties and mannishness like that; and indeed I hate—I dislike men—I can't stand them, not in that way, if ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... were first placed on sale on June 11th and they rapidly came into public favor as is evidenced by the increasing sales every year since. Mr. Howes tells us that "the books are about two by three inches in size, with stiff cardboard covers which are bound together by red cloth. The coat-of-arms of Canada with the words CANADA POSTAGE beneath are engraved in red on the front cover, while inside are four pages of postal information and the two sheets of six stamps each—three ...
— The Stamps of Canada • Bertram Poole
... not only a prudent and seamanlike course but it would conduce to the comfort of the passengers. The ship was now running into a stiff gale. Each hour the sea became heavier, and even the eight thousand tons of the Kansas felt the impact of the giant rollers on her starboard bow. Dinner, therefore, promised to be a meal of much discomfort, cheered only by the knowledge that as soon as the vessel reached the lee ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... wrenching her mind with difficulty from the interests of Wynch-on-the-Wold, focused it on school affairs instead. There was certainly need of mental concentration if she meant to make headway in the College. The standard of work required from VA. was very stiff, and taxed the powers of even the brightest girls ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... arm is broken, straighten the limb gently and if necessary pull upon the end firmly to get the bones in place. Then bind the limb firmly to a splint to hold it in place. A splint may be made of any straight, stiff material—a shingle or piece of board, a bayonet, a rifle, a straight branch of a tree, etc. Whatever material you use must be well padded on the side next to the limb. Be careful never to place the bandages over the fracture, but always above and below. ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... the hot water, and add to the ham; season with the mustard, add the cream beaten stiff and pour into a mould which has been previously wet with cold water. Chill. Turn out to serve and ...
— Armour's Monthly Cook Book, Volume 2, No. 12, October 1913 - A Monthly Magazine of Household Interest • Various
... chill blue eye, not winning but commanding, high cheek bones, a solid, somewhat scornful nose, a firm mouth and chin, enveloped in a copious brown beard; the whole head not unfitly framed in the stiff formal ruff of the period; and the tall stately figure well draped in magisterial robes of velvet and sable—such was ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Brewster, who had just finished the perusal of a very square, stiff-looking epistle, gave vent ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... stiff was he, partly from loss of blood, partly from being bruised from head to foot by being trampled on again and again as the ranks of the combatants swept over him, that it was some time before he was capable of making the ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... assembled about her, invisible but exacting, and she accounting to them for the indignity that had befallen her, and assuring them it was to her, as it would have been to them, incredible. She was even a little stiff with Jeff at first, because she had told him what she would naturally have hidden, like a disgraceful secret. Jeff understood her perfectly. She had met Weedon Moore on philanthropic grounds, an equal so long as they ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... yolk of the egg until creamy, add seasoning and milk. Beat the white until stiff, but not dry, cut and fold into the yolk carefully. Heat an omelet pan, rub the bottom and sides with the butter, and turn in the omelet, spreading it evenly on the pan. Cook gently over the heat until the omelet is set and evenly browned underneath. Put it into ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Science in Rural Schools • Ministry of Education Ontario
... bruised my thigh severely, and could not make my little mountain town till moonlight. And I tell you I was mighty glad when I limped across the bridge over the rushing river and dropped on the hotel sofa. Next morning I was stiff as a poker, but I struggled up the four rickety flights to the local physician, and being assured I only wanted rest, I resolved to take it with book and pipe and mug in a shady beer-garden on the river. I had ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... in it a pinch of lime, a morsel of gambier, a small bit of areca nut, and wrapped up the whole with a dexterous twist. He paused, morsel in hand, seemed to miss something, turned his head from side to side, slowly, like a man with a stiff neck, and ejaculated ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... them makes them grow here in the city streets. I have a fancy that they would all vanish away if I saluted them in botanical terms. As long as I talk of cat-tail rushes, the homeless grimalkins of the areas and the back fences help me to a vision of the swamps thickly studded with their stiff spears; but if I called them 'Typha Latifolia', or even 'Typha Angustifolia', there is not the hardiest and fiercest prowler of the roof and the fire-escape but would fly the sound of my voice and leave me forlorn ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... year was full The thread was cut and finished the school. Death snapped the old worn-out tool, Snapped him short while he stood and stirred (Though stiff he stood as a stiff-necked mule) ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... or green, no dado, no distemper on the walls; the woodwork was grained and varnished after the manner of the Philistines, the walls papered in dark crimson, with heavy curtains of the same colour, and the sideboard, dinner-waggon, and row of stiff chairs were all carved in the same massive and expensive style of ugliness. The pictures were those familiar presentments of dirty rabbis, fat white horses, bloated goddesses, and misshapen boors, by masters who, if younger than they assume ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... flight." Thus saying, 'mid the dead, beside the road They crouch'd; he, all unconscious, hasten'd by. But when such space was interpos'd as leave Between the sluggish oxen and themselves [3] A team of mules (so much the faster they Through the stiff fallow drag the jointed plough), They rush'd upon him; at the sound he stopp'd, Deeming that from the Trojan camp they came, By Hector sent, to order his return. Within a spear's length when they came, or less, For foes he knew them, and to night address'd His active limbs; they rush'd in ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... laughingly. "They said they'd like to go there to-morrow, please, when I asked them what we should do next. What surprises me is that they like such things—such hair-raising things. When I first saw them, black-gowned and stiff-backed, sitting in your little room here, I thought I should never dare offer them anything more wildly exciting than a church service or a lecture on psychology, with perhaps a band concert hinted at, provided the ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter
... and stiff, to the pallet in the loft, and the old nurse drew the sheet over him and left him, for there was no need to watch him now. The girl had gone to her room, and her mother followed her thither, all unnerved by this ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... sweetness and modesty, and touching with such tenderness and depth the most delicate and the purest of human feelings, and Keble as the editor of Fronde's Remains, forward against Dr. Hampden, breaking off a friendship of years with Dr. Arnold, stiff against Liberal change and indulgent to ancient folly and error, the eulogist of patristic mysticism and Bishop Wilson's "discipline," and busy in the ecclesiastical agitations and legal wranglings of our later days, about ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... of this game dates from the period when stiff cylinder-shaped horsehair sofa-cushions were commoner than they are now. One of these is placed in the middle of the room and the players join hands and dance round it, the object of each one being to make one of his neighbors knock the cushion over and to avoid knocking it ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... tool. And now he had mortally offended Hohenlo, and Buys, and Barneveld, while he hated Sir John Norris with a most passionate hatred. Wilkes, the English representative, was already a special object of his aversion. The unvarnished statements made by the stiff counsellor, of the expense of the past year's administration, and the various errors committed, had inspired Leicester with such ferocious resentment, that the friends of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... common talk. This boy will be our ruin, a prudent hand to wield our shattered sceptre. I have observed him from his infancy; he should have lived in Babylon. The old Alroy blood flows in his veins, a stiff-necked race. When I was a youth, his grandsire was my friend; I had some fancies then myself. Dreams, dreams! we have fallen on evil days, and yet we prosper. I have lived long enough to feel that ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... morning the Quickstep got away from the dock. The minute she was fairly out the Golden Gate, however, she poked her nose into a stiff nor'west gale; and as she was bound north and was empty, this gale, catching her on the port counter, caused her to roll and pitch excessively, and cut her customary speed of ten miles an hour down to five. Every passenger aboard ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... a quarrel he had with Fritzlar, Imperial Free-Town in those parts, perhaps a little stiff upon its privileges, and high towards a Landgraf. Conrad marches, one morning (Year 1232) upon insolent Fritzlar; burns the environs; but on looking practically at the ramparts of the place, thinks they are too high, and turns to go home again. ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle
... if you look into the large set of provincial maps now publishing at Paris, you will find situated amongst the hills which divide Burgundy from Savoy, being in danger of an Anchylosis or stiff joint (the sinovia of her knee becoming hard by long matins), and having tried every remedy—first, prayers and thanksgiving; then invocations to all the saints in heaven promiscuously—then particularly to every saint who had ever had a stiff leg before her—then touching it with ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... vegetable, and thus be free to engage in new relations; just as a man who wishes to be naturalized in a new country must first break the ties which hold him to the old one. Those articles of food we were speaking of lately, which are so stiff and ceremonious, and want so much coaxing before they change into chyme, which, moreover, we call indigestible because they tire the stomach so much more than the rest, are merely those whose component parts being held together by more solid ties than usual, continue obstinately in ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... Stonyhurst, and public schools in England, with the fine imperturbable manner of their class and caste, hiding their boyishness under a mask of gravity, and not giving themselves away by the slightest exuberance of speech or gesture, but maintaining stiff upper lips under a square quarter of an inch of fair bristles, went into this war with unemotional and unconscious heroism. Unlike the French officer, who had just that touch of emotionalism and self-consciousness ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... name of the premises, had it possessed the oil-and-honey flow which the aborigines were so often happy in communicating to their local appellations; but it chanced to be a harsh, ill-connected, and interminable word, which seemed to fill the mouth with a mixture of very stiff clay and very crumbly pebbles. Zenobia suggested "Sunny Glimpse," as expressive of a vista into a better system of society. This we turned over and over for a while, acknowledging its prettiness, but concluded it to be rather too ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... helm, all stiff and stark, With his face turned to the skies, The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow On his fixed and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... the startled sand Blinding the combatants together locked In the death-grip; while hill and vale and stream Glow with the flash and crash of arms. Then cold The shades of night o'erwhelm them; to the knee In snow, beards stiff with ice. The carrion bird Hath sought its nest. The war-horse in its strength Is broken. Clothes avail not. Hands are dead, Flesh to the frost succumbs. Nature herself Doth aid the Tartar with a deadly blast Following the ...
— A Lute of Jade/Being Selections from the Classical Poets of China • L. Cranmer-Byng
... character, charm of manner, attractiveness and graciousness of expression, a godlike bearing, are our birthrights. Yet how ugly, stiff, coarse, and harsh in appearance and bearing many of us are! No one can afford to disregard his good looks or ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... For Manhood Mighty that is my name. Many a lord have I do lame:[227] Wonder wide walketh my fame, And many a king's crown have I cracked. I am worthy and wight, witty and wise: I am royal arrayed to reven under the ris,[228] I am proudly apparelled in purpur and bis, As gold I glister in gear: I am stiff, strong, stalwart, and stout, I am the royallest readily that renneth in this rout, There is no knight so grisly that I dread nor doubt, For I am so doughtly dight there may no dint me dere, And the king of pride full prest with all his proud presence, And the king of lechery ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... killed, and the rest of the team were badly shaken, until C.S.M. Gorse and Corpl. B. Staniforth came along and helped to reorganize the post with a few new men. The trench contained no real cover, and the bombardment lasted for about half an hour; a severe ordeal for men who had already had a stiff fight followed by a night of bombing. Many of the telephone lines were broken, and L.-Corpl. Fisher, who had done such gallant work the previous day, was killed entering our trench just after he had re-opened ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... Prussian ambassador to Alexander II. He was then forty-three years of age, and was known as the sworn foe of Austria. His free-and-easy but haughty manners were a great contrast to those of his stiff, buttoned-up, and pretentious predecessors; and he became a great favorite in Russian court circles. The comparatively small salary he received,—less than twenty thousand dollars, with a house,—would not allow him to give expensive ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... level with the door. Upon this round the mocking-bird executed what has been called his war dance, shaking himself, shuffling (or moving along without raising the feet), and agitating his feathers in such a way that they rustled like stiff new silk. After a few minutes of this performance he flew away, returning presently to repeat it. This he did again and again, and his motive was plain. "You've domineered long enough," his manner said: "now come out here, and we'll settle this matter at once." The bird in the ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... which in the summer keeps open all the night through, one gets the frothing Zabajone made so stiff that a spoon stands upright ...
— The Gourmet's Guide to Europe • Algernon Bastard
... to show that laws prescribing or magistrates exercising a very stiff and often inapplicable rule, or a blind and rash discretion, never can provide the just proportions between earning and salary, on the one hand, and nutriment on the other: whereas interest, habit, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... order. He was entirely willing to send a subaltern and a score of troopers to convoy the entire party—sheriff and deputies, posse and prisoners—to the territorial capital, but, like the old war-horse he was, he balked, stiff-necked and stiff-legged, at the sheriff's demand that the escort should report to him—should be, in point of fact, under ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... not know whose poem it was talked about it that evening. He said to young Long-fel-low, "Did you see that poem in the paper? It was stiff. And all ...
— Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans • Edward Eggleston
... main meal was corn bread and milk and grits with milk. That was a little bit coarser than meal. The way we used to cook it and the best flavored is to cook it out-of-doors in a Dutch oven. We called 'em corn dodgers. Now ash cakes, you have your dough pretty stiff and smooth off a place in the ashes and lay it right on the ashes and cover it up with ashes and when it got done, you could wipe every bit of the ashes off, and get you some butter and put on it. M-m-m! I tell you, its fine! There is another way of ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... severity. Neither she nor any one of her attendants advanced a step to meet him. The Duke took off his hat, but she, calmly recognizing his right as a Spanish grandee, insisted upon his remaining covered. A stiff and formal conversation of half an hour's duration then ensued, all parties remaining upon their feet. The Duke, although respectful; found it difficult to conceal his indignation and his haughty sense ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Staff.) Everybody knew that no one could compare with him in playing that instrument, either in skill, taste, or talent. They begged him to play and offered him the dulcimer; the Jew refused, saying that his hands had grown stiff, that he was out of practice, that he did not dare to, that he was embarrassed by the men of high station; with many a bow he was stealing away. When Zosia saw this, she ran up, and with one white hand proffered him the hammers with which the master was wont ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... the same moment the Indian gave a cry of triumph, tucked the one snake into a fold of his robe and bent down, making passes with his hands above the serpent on the ground. And as his hands moved so the rattlesnake gradually straightened out its body till it lay stiff and straight as ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby
... the storm, several of the sails were split on board the Resolution. Indeed they had been so long bent, and were worn so thin, that this accident had of late happened to us almost daily, in both ships; especially when, being stiff and heavy with the rain, they became less able to bear the shocks of the violent and variable winds we at this time experienced. The gale at length growing moderate, and settling to the W., we kept upon a wind to the southward; and, at nine in the morning ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... However, Mix didn't perceive the mistake, but darted down stairs, put on his hat and walked off to the courtroom. It was a very cold morning, and by the time Mix reached his destination the varnish was as stiff as a stone. He felt a little uncomfortable about the head, and he endeavored to remove his hat to discover the cause of the difficulty, but to his dismay it was immovable. It was glued fast to the skin, and his efforts to take it off gave him ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... a long one," Jimmie said. "Gee, but I was scared stiff when I saw it burnin' right under where ...
— Boy Scouts on Motorcycles - With the Flying Squadron • G. Harvey Ralphson
... feet long and two and a half across, with a metal rim some six inches high running round the edge. I was quite prepared to be sick or at least giddy. But I was pleasantly disappointed. My journey took about a quarter of an hour; walking it would have taken about three hours of very stiff climbing. The motion is quite steady, except for a slight jolt as one passes each standard, and, provided one sits still and doesn't shift one's centre of gravity from side to side, there is no ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... manner. It was nothing very much beyond a suggestion of suppressed excitement and that rather wild look which lingers in a man's eyes when he is just fresh from a dispute or has experienced a narrow escape from danger. Then Gifford ordered a stiff glass of spirits and soda and drank it off before going up ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... strange-looking couple who passed along the deal boards just in front of us." Mrs. Thesiger laughed and her head fell back upon her pillow. But during that movement her eyes had never left her daughter's face. "A middle-aged man with stiff gray hair, a stiff, prim face, and a figure like a ramrod. Oh, there never was anything so stiff." A noticeable bitterness began to sound in her voice and increased as she went on. "There was an old woman with ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... and gaiety of the company seemed in harmony with the beauty of the morning. The mid-day meal was made ready and begun, when a quick movement was felt, and a flood of salt water came pouring through a port-hole that had been most carelessly left unclosed. A stiff breeze caught her broadside, and the "Royal George" turned slowly over and sank. As soon as the disaster was perceived, an officer ran to the ship's captain to inform him that it was capsizing. Kempenfelt, ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... know that there was anything to prevent, but mercy, Herbert was so sudden. Lulu began to recite the resources of the house for a lunch. Meanwhile, since the first mention of picnic, the child Monona had been dancing stiffly about the room, knees stiff, elbows stiff, shoulders immovable, her straight hair flapping about her face. The sad dance of the child who cannot dance because she never has danced. Di gave a conservative assent—she was at that age—and then took advantage of the family ...
— Miss Lulu Bett • Zona Gale
... compunction, she approached the bed. The body was laid out: stretched in its winding sheet, stiff and stark did it seem to repose on the mattress—the countenance rendered more ghastly than even death could make it, by the white band which tied up ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... held a cocked hat with a cockade and a black feather edging; and he carried a long sword in a scabbard of white polished leather. As visitors were presented to him by an aide, Washington made a bow. To a candid friend who reported to him that his bows were considered to be too stiff, he replied: "Would it not have been better to throw the veil of charity over them, ascribing their stiffness to the effects of age, or to the unskillfulness of my teacher, rather than to pride and dignity ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... "He plays a fairly stiff game." He finally found his son on the porch, apparently alone, ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... glad he did not have to take the night Tide. His pony was quite shaken up by the fall, and a little lame. Jack himself felt sore and stiff, and it was much pleasanter to remain with his relatives, spending the evening in Jennie's company, than to ride the lonely ...
— Jack of the Pony Express • Frank V. Webster
... small reception room on one side of the front door, furnished in cheap, boarding-house style, and took a seat on a stiff-backed cane chair. ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - or, Jacob Marlowe's Secret • Horatio Alger
... Fennington, but as time passed and there seemed little prospect of bringing the robbers to justice, interest died down. But the radio boys never abated their resolve to do all in their power to recover the stolen merchandise, although at that time they were kept so busy in high school, preparing for a stiff examination, that they had ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... were Princes of the Land: In the first Rank of these did Zimri stand: A man so various, that he seem'd to be Not one, but all Mankind's Epitome. Stiff in Opinions, always in the wrong; Was Every thing by starts, and Nothing long: But, in the course of one revolving Moon, Was Chymist, Fidler, States-Man, and Buffoon: Then all for Women, Painting, Rhiming, Drinking; Besides ten thousand Freaks that dy'd in thinking. Blest Madman, who ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... great deal too Frenchified, from all I hear. And why my friend Twemlow cold-shoulders him so, is something of a mystery to me. Twemlow is generally a judicious man in things that have nothing to do with the Church. When it comes to that, he is very stiff-backed, as I have often had to tell him. Perhaps this young man is a Papist. His mother was, and ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... brushwood watching where she went. How light she was! her feet scarcely made a dint upon the wet and spongy grass, in which his own had sunk. She went over everything like a bird. Now and then she would stop to gather a handful of brown rustling brambles, and the stiff yellow oak leaves, and here and there a rusty bough to which some rays of autumn colour still hung, which at first Jock supposed to mean botany, and was semi-respectful of, until she took off her hat and arranged ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... she looked down on the high-crown, narrow-brim hat of stiff gray felt which was at her feet, and nodded at it with firmness and decision. "It's going to be my Christmas present to myself—getting rid of you. Couldn't anything give me as much pleasure as smashing you is going to ...
— How It Happened • Kate Langley Bosher
... of starting the circulation through the shrunken arteries without the shock of the electric battery, and of putting intelligence into the dull stare of lunacy, and of restringing the auditory nerve of the deaf ear, and of striking articulation into the stiff tongue, and of making the stark-naked madman dress himself and exchange tombstone for ottoman, and of unlocking from the skeleton grip of death the daughter of Jairus to embosom her in her glad father's arms. Oh, He was lovely—sitting, ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage |
